Supreme Court sides mostly with Republicans in last-minute voting cases
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court has faced a stream of last-minute appeals over election procedures since the spring, and most of the time it has rejected calls to allow less restrictive voting measures despite the pandemic.
That has generally meant that Republicans prevailed in seeking to block changes that would make it easier to vote, especially in casting mail-in ballots. Of 11 election-related cases filed as emergency appeals since April, Republican interests won in eight.
The court rejected Democratic efforts to lift an age eligibility requirement for mail ballots in Texas, or allow curbside voting and waive the witness requirement for mail ballots in Alabama, or suspend the witness requirement in South Carolina. And it put a hold on lower court orders that would have made it easier to get initiative measures on the ballot in Idaho and Oregon.
"I think a deference to the states is at work here," said Edward Foley, an expert on election law at Moritz College of law at The Ohio State University.
'It makes things better': Obama encourages voting while campaigning for Biden
That could explain why the court reached opposite conclusions on mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
On Oct. 20, the court rebuffed a Republican attempt to block a ruling by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court that allows mail ballots to be counted if they arrive up to three days after election day. By contrast, the court granted a GOP request to block an extension on the mail ballot deadline that was ordered by a federal court in Wisconsin during the primary.
"The Pennsylvania case was coming from the state's own judiciary rather than a federal court," Foley said, and the state's top election official was not supporting the Republicans.
Paul Smith of the Campaign Legal Center in Washington, who frequently argues election cases in federal court, agrees.
"There seems to be some feeling on the Supreme Court that state election officials should be left alone to make their judgment," he said.
At the same time, he added, that has tended to allow Republicans to prevail, limiting voting opportunities.
In August, the Supreme Court denied an effort by Republicans to block lower court rulings that suspended the witness requirement for mail ballots in Rhode Island, but state officials supported that rule change making voting easier. And in October, the court rejected a Republican appeal seeking to block ranked-choice voting in Maine. There, too, the change was endorsed by the top court in the state, not by a federal judge.
Two more rulings could come at any time ahead of Election Day Nov. 3 from the U.S. Supreme Court, on Republican efforts to block lower court rulings that extend the mail ballot deadline in the presidential battleground states of Wisconsin and North Carolina.
Judge Amy Coney Barret's confirmation by the full Senate is expected Monday, so she could jump in and vote on any of those pending emergency appeals, as well as others that will undoubtedly come before Election Day.
The vote in the Pennsylvania case was 4-4, one vote short of the number needed to grant a stay of a lower court ruling. Barrett's arrival removes the possibility of further ties.
A third factor may also be at work in the court's unwillingness to allow last-minute rule changes.
When the court ruled for Republicans in the South Carolina case, maintaining the signature requirement for mail ballots, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said that the Supreme Court has for years tended to disfavor such changes.
"This court has repeatedly emphasized that federal courts ordinarily should not alter state election rules in the period close to an election," he wrote.
Pete Williams
Pete Williams is an NBC News correspondent who covers the Justice Department and the Supreme Court, based in Washington.
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I have no doubt that Trump will lose on the ballot count, yet he could still squeek through on the Electoral College count, but if he loses then FOR SURE he will appeal to the SCOTUS that he now owns, and they just might establish a precedent that would make America's democratic system a world wide laughing stock and in which case Putin might award the Justices the Order of Lenin.
the national majority or "ballot count" as you called it does not mean anything in a presidential election.
never has and never will
the more ya know
Of course, a "democracy" where majority does NOT rule.
by design.
the majority is restrained by law.
Yes, you have laws restraining the will of the people, so what I wonder is why is it considered America's duty to criticize other nations that restrain the will of their people.
our constitutional restraints are on government powers, not so much on the people.
your fundamental lack of knowledge about our form govt is understandable.
our system is better viewed as 50 separate countries with a defense pact. (a superstate )
when they wrote our constitution they made sure a few states could not rule over the majority of states due to population. and thank god they did that. if not we would have already become a socialist / communist shit-hole.
Perhaps I'm not sufficiently conversant with the American political system, as well you know I'm not an American and never studied it in school. I admit that, but I have to laugh when you say that the country I presently live in is a "shit-hole', when in many ways it is more advanced than yours, but then I'm sure you've never been here so it is understandable that you wouldn't or due to your obvious prejudices even try to know. However, i've been in and through much of America on MANY occasions during most of my lifetime, even owning and spending holidays in a home in Florida for a while.
one man's shit hole is another man's paradise... to each their own.
but don't take it so personally...
I say socialism / communism sucks no matter what country it is in.
I don't take it personally. I am merely a guest in China on the basis of having a visa that must continually be renewed.
Ah, but now you're speaking of a country's government - that is different from what you said before where you were speaking of the place where that government exists. I would never have called America a shithole because I know PERSONALLY that it isn't. You had called a country a shithole without ever being there, which is what caused my disagreement. So your comment about one man's paradise is another man's shithole is rather ridiculous if a person has not been there to compare - especially when photos and videos can show that a country is far from being a "shithole".
every country has an example of a shit hole somewhere.
our best example of a shit hole is california where one can get paid a lot of money to clean shit off the streets.
kamala cant keep people from shitting on her streets but she wants to be vp? LOL
I'm thinking job 1 of any government is to keep people from shitting on the street. maybe im wrong... LOL
Trump, nor any President, owns SCOTUS.
FFS, where do you get this crap?
Did you even read the article?
Let's wait to see what the SCOTUS decides when Trump sues to replace the winner. If the SCOTUS decides against him, I'll agree with you.
The Order of Lenin has not been awarded since 1991. Get a little more current, please, before publishing your fantasy.
That would make it even more special.
Buzz, we are also not a democracy but rather a Republic. The founding fathers of our nation ensured that Cali and NY would not call every election due to populace. If a true democracy were in place, only 2 would have deciding vote, and our other 48 states would not have a voice.
Yes, in America some people are more equal than others.
And who would they be Buzz?
leftwing politicians?
For those who don't know - The House of Representatives is where populations are recognized. CA has 52 reps as opposed to 1 for Vermont. States are equally represented in the Senate, which is a different body, with different functions.
straight from the book "animal farm"
have you read that?
another quote from animal farm is...
4 legs good - 2 legs bad ( today's leftwing cancel culture in a nutshell)
nothing happening in today's politics is new, we have seen it before.
[Deleted]
I majored in English Literature for my Bachelor of Arts degree, and yes, I've read that and more of Orwell's works.
Your electoral college system may be best for the individual States of your Republic, but you take away the rights of individuals by doing so - because in my opinion, a person in NYC should have equal rights with a person in North Dakota when it comes to electing the President who presides over ALL Americans, but they don't. Canada has provinces that have separate rights as well (such as education, etc) but every vote from every citizen whether from populous provinces such as Ontario and ones less populous such as Saskatchewan counts, i.e. EVERY Canadian's vote counts in a federal election. No person in Saskatchewan is MORE equal than one in Ontario.
It's very simple Buzz. Under the American system - changing the way the president is selected would take a Constitutional amendment, which requires the votes of two-thirds of the U.S. House of Representatives, two-thirds of the Senate, and three-fourths of the states. If that's what the majority of the American people want they can change it that way.
As to your argument of one person/one vote, there is only one reason we in the US are hearing that - because democrats lost a few via the EC. I for one, have no idea what or who is voting in NYC, LA or Chicago. No thanks!
they do... they all elected their state governors.
at a federal level...
the constitution is an agreement between 50 separate states / govt's. that is why the 50 states vote for president via the EC and each person in a state gets to vote for their state's majority opinion.
there is also this thing called an amendment...
if the vast majority of people and states want to change the constitution... they can.
Very well, then whatever your POTUS has to do should ONLY be effective against the governors and administration of the various States, and not the people directly, since the people individually had nothing DIRECTLY to do with his/her election. What a waste of money Trump's rallies are when he only needs to convince the governors and elected or appointed State delegates of his qualifications.
again... you do not understand our system.
there is no example of the EC overturning their states majority will. any faithless electors in the past only did that as "protest votes" with no intent to overturn the states majority will.
and now.. thanks to the recent supreme court case... even those "protest votes" will never will happen again
Supreme Court rules electoral college representatives must honor choice of state’s voters
The justices unanimously rejected the claim that electors have a right under the Constitution to defy their states and vote for the candidate of their choice.
which also made the " National Popular Vote Interstate Compact" dead in the water.
another attempt by the left to circumvent our system shut down.
take your pick, things got muddy in the edit
Okay, I knew about the electoral candidates voting against the will of their people, which would have supported my opinion, but I wasn't aware of that SCOTUS decision and the fact that it cannot happen again.
By the way, can you explain what electoral "super-candidates" means? Have they more power or something?
are ya talking about super delegates?
In American politics , a superdelegate is an unpledged delegate to the Democratic National Convention who is seated automatically and chooses for themselves for whom they vote.
Thanks.
And they have no idea who is voting in MA or RI or ME,
so it all balances out without your input or approval.
"It is what it is", DJTrump.
no worries.
cheers
Yep, a republic. A banana republic. Also known as a shithole country. Doesn't take Trump long to bankrupt his companies or the country. Morally bankrupt and thanks to his tax cuts, literally bankrupting us.
Supposedly, in response to the pandemic, at least four states—California, New Jersey, Nevada and Vermont, plus the District of Columbia—switched to proactively mailing a ballot to every properly registered voter for the November election. Others have extended their mail-in-ballot options to everyone. There is early voting in many states as well.
Things to remember - mail in ballots have rules which must be followed or they can be discarded or contested. There is more chance for fraud. State systems can become overwhelmed with all the mail-in-ballots. Also a necessity, IMO, is that all ballots should be counted in all 50 states on election night!
Technically that is already true. Unless you mean literally counted on election night which is insane.
Mail in ballots are generally treated the same as early votes, after verification they are scanned and tallies and the information is collected and maintained on a separate "controller". All of the early in person votes are similarly saved on their own controller.
On Election Day all live votes are saved on their own controller at at the end of the day The 3 controllers are added together
county by county. Some states allow a few extra days for Federal post card voters ( Overseas military & Civilian ) and late mail in ballots, but these are usually meaningless statistically.
We should have a good idea of who won on election night; verification might take a few says longer than usual, but I expect no surprises there.
In NC, 61% of registered voters had already voted by 10/21.
Texas already exceeded 50% of their 2016 total votes by the same day, with two weeks to go.
They can come in 3 days after the election in PA (as long as they were postmarked by the day of the election) - which is a key state in this election.
"Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are the only two swing states where officials can begin processing and counting the millions of absentee ballots only on Election Day, likely delaying complete results for several days. (In a third crucial swing state, Michigan, clerks can begin processing ballots only the day before Election Day.)"
We should have a good idea of who won on election night
"We" don't agree on much. "We" could have both sides claiming victory and a bunch of devious lawyers contesting ballots.
The nation needs a clear winner declared by the morning of the 4th
In PA the postmark doesn't even have to be legible.
Apparently not, so what?
Like Gore v Bush?
We survived that cheat, we will survive others.
Nonsense. The nation needs the certified, validated count & EC asap. Not a moment before.
Trump, barring a childish tantrum, or Pence will still be the POTUS until at least 01/20/2021.
"It is what is is". DJT.
Yup, we survived the Democrats trying to cheat their way to victory.
and Democrats say the GOP cheated.
So What?
The country really doesn't care.
I know many didn't get it. "We" being progressive vs traditional Americans. All we need is the two candidates in an apparent deadlock on election night, while waiting on votes from PA and both sides thinking their candidate won. I can foresee both campaigns claiming victory and then the slimy lawyers get involved.
Like Gore v Bush?
I'm thinking worse.
We survived that cheat, we will survive others.
That's what I'm talking about. We don't need a civil war.
Nonsense.
Actually, it is what the nation needs & deserves.
Same as NC until they extended it by 9 more days....
I seem to recall you mailing in your vote but saying everyone else who did so was lazy.
That's a gross corruption of what I said.
What I said had to do with something Obama once said:
"President Obama says that the reason Hillary Clinton lost in 2016 is because the voters got "lazy and complacent" and stayed home due to the fact she was winning in the polls."
That's funny given the gross corruption of most everything
Republicans and conservative terrorists have ever misquoted from the former President
or anyone that they even vaguely disagree with and misquoted.
Character assassination is second nature to Trump and people like him.
PROJECTION
Nope, that's exactly what you said. That everyone else was lazy except for you.
Prove it!
Vic, we've gone over this before. BY YOUR OWN RULES, you must prove that you didn't say it. Otherwise it would be very hypocritical of you when you require that of everyone else.
Yes we have. The person making the claim provides the proof - that would be Tess and btw she is reciting a smear somebody else made.
So Tess and you need to retrieve the article. It wasn't that long ago. You should be able to find it.
Not by your own rules. You have continuously made claims without proof, then demanded other provide proof to dispute your claims.
Like I said, for you to do otherwise would be very hypocritical.
When I make claims/state facts - I provide links. I'd venture to say more than most.
You just made a false claim.
BE HONEST - TESS MADE THE CLAIM AND SHE CAN"T BACK IT UP> NEITHER CAN YOU!
Why do you feel the need to enlarge all your posts and bold them?
It's annoying.
Which comment Vic?
"Nonsense" was from 3.1.3, 13 hours ago.
"Projection" is a weak defense. Ironic actually.
I only do it for certain people, if you notice.
It's annoying.
Reading is enlightening.
If Trump wins as expected, we can expect the Democrats to keep finding boxes of ballots for days afterward, and then filing lawsuits to slow the whole process down.
I wonder if any ballot boxes will be found in a car trunk 3 or 4 days later?
I'm also wondering that as well. Votes should be in on time for counting. They have been hammering in on YouTube and every other streaming service besides regular cable about votes and when mail in is due. If you want to vote by mail and can't follow simple due dates, like when you have to sign up for insurance(open enrollment), then, well.......you don't get an extentment. Simple pass for our armed men and women over seas
ALSO! people ALWAYS remember the deadline to get Christmas cards and presents out. If you can't remember to send in your ballot(if you choose to vote that way), then oh well.
Some just like to make excuses why voter turnout is lower here than in other countries.
Fact is a lot of people don't care at all about politics.
In Texas, we have early voting. If you can't figure out how to get to a polling station, show your ID, and vote, then that is on the voter---not everyone else.
I agree! We have had early voting in Ga for 3 weeks now. There is no voter suppression, its just the simple fact that only a few places are open for early. A lot of our polling places are schools, we cannot shut down schools again for early voting. No one here in Ga was bitching because of long lines on day one or 2 of early voting, they were happy to do it(if that's what they chose to do). Despite another seed here about long lines in Suwanee, Ga.The simple fact that not all polling places are open for early voting. My polling place is in and out, 15 minutes tops. Bit they are only open on election day, which is how I plan on voting... In person, ON ELECTION DAY
My wife and I went on Wednesday.
The line was a little longer than I have seen in the past, but it only took us a total of 20 minutes from when we parked until we drove away. Not bad, and hardly an inconvenience.
Good!
I encourage all to vote.
I have noticed an unusually large amount of ads encouraging people to vote this year. I wonder if we will see similar amounts of ads next election?
I hope so, but why people have to be encouraged or enticed to vote, I'll never understand.
10am on tuesday. I stood in line for a whole 7 mins,,, LOL
word.
if and when they wake up? they mostly join the silent majority
what the left does not grasp is "most people" want the federal government to stay out of our way and leave us alone. and they really don't want higher taxes... or more expensive energy costs.
$ bread and butter issues. every time.
Seems clear to me. Vote these people that want to make voting harder out of office.
Then again, that would require people opening their eyes and to stop voting against their own self interests.
electing the left is not in our best long term interest.
we got no interest in any of that... not even a little bit.
simple bread and butter issues will rule the day.
Quite a fantasy line up there...
every one of those fantasies are backed by joe.
or... maybe I missed something
gimme something to work with... LOL
Uh huh....
You missed A LOT
prove it.
No need. You talk nonsense.
Fear tactics. All it is.
joes platform creates fear... that is a fact.
loss of jobs and money does that to people.
That is only a 'fact' in your world.
hi, I am from earth, what planet are you from?
yer too funny, never change
I am one that can see without trump coloured glasses.
LOL sure ya can... LOL
your hatred for trump has blinded you.
but hey, that's cool you are not the only one
Thanks to your 'president'
nice try... but, no dice.
the only people killing jobs right now are blue state governors.
joe would just take that plan nationwide.
My hatred of donald? Haha
I pay the buffoon no such honour.
The only one who is killing jobs right now is your 'president'
trump ordered blue states to keep their economies locked down?
good job.
our constitution is not suspended just because someone uses the word "emergency"